If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Compressed Folder Password Tutorial

COMPRESSED Folder Passwords - How to bypass the password and look at the files.

By Evil_Jesus

(Tested only on Windows XP Professional)

In this tutorial you will learn how to get around the passworded compressed folders.

Why would you want to do this?
------------------------------
There are a few reasons why you may want to do this (or need to do it). 1.You may need the files that are inside the compressed folder. 2. You may be interested in the specific folder for some reason.

How do I make myself a passworded folder?
-----------------------------------------
If you want to make a passworded folder here is how you do it. make a new compressed folder and add any files or folders you want to it. While in the compressed folder:

Click on File
Click Add Password
Enter the password that you want.

The files in this folder will still be visible but no one else will be able to open them without the password. If you want these files to be invisible to other people put the passworded folder you just created into another compressed folder. To see the files a person must enter the password.
To remove the password:
Click on File
Click Remove Password

Getting passed the passworded folder
------------------------------------
OK now we are onto the fun part. Make sure you are able to view all files or folder.
Tools, Folder options, View, then click view hidden files or folders. If you dont want to do this, you will need to use the address bar. Also to get into the file person will need to have opened it at least once.

To get the file/folder:
Go to My Computer
Double click on local disk
Go into Documents and Settings
Double click on the persons name
Double click on Local Settings (This was a hidden folder)
Double click on Temp (Do not delete anything in this folder)

Now it should have a list of files that you don't know about, DO NOT TOUCH them. look at the folders names. There may be a few names that are just numbers and letters don't worry about them and keep looking. We are looking for a folder starting with:

Temporary Directory x

Where x can be any number 1

This will also be a hidden folder.
This is also what we are looking for. You will most likely know the folders name so check the names of all the temporary directories. Say the passworded folder was named hacking, we would look for:

Temporary Directory 1 for hacking.zip

Once you have found the file double click on it. All the files that are in it will be in front of you for you to see. The files will not be passworded at all and you are free to view them.

After you have finished viewing them and you dont want the person tyo know that you have been through their stuff, Go back to the Local Settings file and go into the My Recent Documents folder (this is also hidden) highlight the files that you looked at and delete them. This will not delete the actual file it will just delete the shortcut to it.

Ok for the people that didn't want to change wether the view hidden files and folders or not, you will need to use the address bar.

Go to internet explorer or any folder and type into the top

C:\Documents and Settings\____________\Local Settings\Temp this will take you to the file if the name of the folder was Comedy add this to the end

To clean up after yourself dothe same thing as above with the My Recent Documents and also clean your history in Internet Explorer. This will remove the auto complete if another person types in

C:\Documents and Settings\ etc.

Conclusion
----------
The easiest method by far is using the folder view to find the files. The command line can be slow and tedious but if oyu know what you are doing then it can be a quick way to get the file/folder.

Thanks for reading this tutorial. Hope you find it useful.
Lok out for more tutorials by Evil_Jesus

This tutorial was written by Evil_Jesus
No responsibility is accepted by Evil_Jesus or any acts that were related to this tutorial.
It is for informational purposes only and is not to be used for any illegal activities.
Copyright 2003

How can we prevent this? I am assuming that if you are a limited user you will not be able to do this. Can't you not get into other people documents and settings folders if you are just a limited user. So I guess that is one way to prevent, make sure all accounts are limited user accounts and not administrative accounts.

edit
finally got to test about accessing the documents and settings folder of other users(two BSOD's on XP pro, they seem to come in pairs) and you can't do it if you are a limited user. So, if you don't want someone doing this, just make them a limited user on the machine, which they should be anyway.

Re-posting ANY material (including files, text, design) on Astalavista.com for public use is prohibited without prior authorization from the Webmaster. Anyone caught with unauthorized re-posting of material from this site will be dealt with severely. Please ask us before re-posting anything off this site.

No evil jesus wrote it but it is posted on another site and from Ms Mittens post I think once you submit it to astalavista you can't post it on another site with out the web masters permission to do so